Adele Arakawa, outgoing 9News anchor who ruled the Denver market’s TV ratings for 24 years, is weaning herself off TV news. She’s even allowing herself to watch “CBS This Morning” instead of her station’s affiliated “Today” on NBC.

Heading toward her June 30 departure from the KUSA-Channel 9 anchor desk, she claims she won’t miss the grind. She says she’s ready for a life centered around golf at the home in Tucson which she and husband Barry Tiller upsized to four years ago. They play golf two or three times a week. (Her handicap is now 18. “I hope to get it down to single digits,” she said.)

Her timing is perfect: With local TV news in decline and media generally at a crossroads, Arakawa is getting out on top — while the industry is still recognizable. The era of huge anchor salaries is past. The corporate pressure to focus more on the bottom line and less on idealistic journalism is a given.

The game has changed.

In the old days “we had a 45 share” (or percentage of the viewing audience). “Now we celebrate a 4 or 5 share,” she said.

The timing is right for her personally, too. Arakawa will be 60 in August; Barry will be 70 in September; and their 40th anniversary is in July.

She will have one contractual obligation in Denver, not connected to media. It’s “a company I’ve had a relationship with, a fun project” for one year with an option to extend. “That’s all I’ll say.” But she’s done with TV.

On a recent Sunday at her home in Lone Tree, dressed in white shorts and top and with a tee time in the offing, Arakawa sent her husband out for golf balls and settled into the corner of a vast sofa to speak of her good fortune.

They’ll only take four of their cars to Arizona, she said. They’re giving two to the kids (her son and his wife). A close circle of friends awaits in Tucson, where the couple has kept a second home for years.

She has stopped racing her 911 Porsche race car competitively. “My car got old, then I got old.” But she still drives a road course, a track she described as a cross between Formula 1 and the Grand Prix.

The house is sold, she’s getting rid of belongings, she’s letting go as much as an admitted Type-A personality can. She even wanted to unload the several Emmy Awards lining a shelf next to the giant safe in the den. “My husband said I should wait.”

She has obsessively planned whirlwind travel in coming months to Europe, Sonoma, North Carolina, with stops in Denver for black-tie charity events and to pick up an award (she’ll be inducted into the Denver Press Club’s Hall of Fame in September), then a trip to Japan.

She seems less interested in discussing the industry she is leaving than the future she is launching.

Despite the erosion of the TV news audience, she predicts “local TV news will continue to exist,” even as more people are driven to the online platform. She anticipates “a shakeout of stations. There will be a few survivors of local news. You’re seeing a transition in this market. I did live in the Golden Age of TV news … . In the future, there will be fewer local news operations.” She anticipates more takeovers, more mergers.

She also expects more innovative efforts along the lines of Kyle Clark’s “Next,” which she called “a toe in the water” encouraged by TEGNA.

The content has changed. The blatant cross-promotional aspects are accepted now. “I’ve been there, done that, fought those battles,” she said.

Even as the industry tilts toward MMJs (multi-media journalists, who act as reporter-photographer-editor in one), it will be up to the young recruits “to retain some semblance of journalistic integrity.”

She’d like to be remembered as “somebody who gave a damn, who cared passionately about what went on air every day. I really cared,” she said, tearing up. “It sounds so cliche,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“I won’t get overly melancholy about it,” she said, “but I will miss the people I worked with.”

She claims she won’t miss the showbiz acclaim that came with her very public persona. (She recalls someone yelling her name in the reverential quiet of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. “There’s no escape.”) But she knows she will miss the breaking news days. “You live for that adrenaline rush.”

Arakawa is philosophical even as she speeds through her day, organizing, planning, exercising, connecting and competing. “Life is a series of passages, this is a whole new chapter. It’s like driving a race car: Always look ahead. That’s my mantra in life.”

Her husband, back with the golf balls, confirmed her type-A traits. He marveled at her energy for details, her non-stop planning. When it was suggested that some type-As have a tough time with retirement, Barry paused and answered thoughtfully: “It’s a possibility.”